Heading back to Ocean City, NJ!

Not literally, although I would not be disappointed if we did!

What is it about the beach?  I'm instantly more relaxed, more carefree.  I took off my watch when we got there (because I vainly feared that I would forget and get the dreaded watch tanline!) and you know what??  I have not put my watch back on since then!!

What a liberating feeling.  I am no longer controlled by the time.  Life passes at our own pace around here this week.  When I do need the time, I simply have to glance at my BlackBerry (although he and I are on the outs this week - he is NOT behaving well AT ALL! *pout*).  Things may change when I head back to work next week, but for now, we're on BEACH TIME...

And speaking of the beach, I wanted to share Ocean City with you all!  If you've never been, it comes highly recommended - especially by my family and I!  It's perfect for a family vacation, because it is a "dry" city.

Not dry, as in no water.

Dry, as in no booze.

Years ago (as few as 10, I'll admit...), this would have sent chills up and down my spine.  A vacation without a little margharita?  WHA-AAT?  But funnily enough, it was refreshing to not have the drunken university/college kids swearing up a storm under the umbrella next to you.

Ocean City is basically a grid, running from 1st Street, all the way to 59th Street, with a few others mixed in for good measure.  (I think it's just to keep the tourists from getting too cocky, thinking they know where they're going.)

There are three main streets that run parallel to the beach:  Central Ave., Asbury Ave. and West Ave.  As you get closer to the high 20's (29th, 28th), there are a few other streets.

The beach houses are all remarkably the same.  They are two stories, with one tenant/owner per floor.  There are pretty balconies at the front and back of most of the buildings so you can always see what's going on.

My cousins have a beautiful top floor beach house that is just steps from the beach.

Some of the houses that are on the beach are phenomenal, like this one:

This photo only shows the top floor of the whole house, which is being renovated and is for sale.  I asked my cousin's hubby, who is in real estate and he said that this home is selling for about $1.5 million.  Per floor.

Wow.

But for good reason, as you see from the next photos. 

Let me just interject here... These photos were all taken with the Nikon D300s that was sent to me to test drive and almost all of them here are completely SOOC (straight out of the camera)!  I may have adjusted the levels on a few, just because I tend to like my photos a little overexposed, and I brightened up a few of the beach ones because of the haze from the heat.

Now can you see why I'm Jonesin' for this camera??

Anyhooooo... From where we were sitting (which was in front of my future $1.5 million dollar home... at the corner of 41st and beach), you could see Atlantic City in the distance.

I had to practically sit on Gary to keep him from jumping in the car and trying his hand with our life savings at the poker tables.

Okay, so not really.  But when we go back next year, I think we may take a few days and head into AC - just to say we've done it!

By the way, that fleck on the right hand side above the water is not a dirty spot on your monitor, or from a dirty lens... it's someone parasailing out on the ocean! 

The view on the other side was just as spectacular:

As you may notice, the sandy beach area was HUGE!  It started near the dunes (you can see them slightly on the right side of the photo, near the blue umbrella) and went to the water's edge.  You can sort of see where the dry sandy beach starts... at night, the tide comes right up to there!

There was a lot to do on the beach.  Our cousins had shovels, pails, sand toys, boogie boards and skimboards.  If you aren't familiar with skimboards, here's a video.  It's basically surfing, on a smaller board, that starts on land, instead of paddling out to the waves.

Connor tried it, but didn't really like being shown up by his little 7 year old cousin:

So he tried his hand at boogie boarding:

He had a blast, spending most of the day riding the waves! 

I was surprised though that he stayed in the water, especially after a man, who was fishing out there, waist-deep, showed him the baby sand shark that he caught!!

Eek!  I can only say that I'm glad Gary didn't tell me about that until after we left the beach!

More Ocean City pics tomorrow!